Thursday, June 07, 2007

SCENES: RECTO/AVENIDA EVENING RUSH

41 Comments:

Hi Eric, thanks for visiting my blog! I've been visiting your site for quite some time now, it started when I needed references for Metro Manila buildings and was directed to your blog. If you need to email me, just send it to renom1@yahoo.com. :)

hi señor enrique, sorry this is not related to your post but this is the only way i know how to reach you...

i have a question about the globe that used to be in the center of the skating rink at luneta, is my memory correct that it used to be afountain or something, i've posted a picture here http://mayniladailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/06/jungle-in-manila.html

Manila is not going to be the same without those images you photograph!....Include a round belly'd cop sitting idly in his personal "stainless steel owner jeep" manufactured in Malabon next time to complete the scene!

I've chanced upon an entry in urbandictionary.com about "trainsurfing" where they hang (sabit) by the passenger train cars as it moves along the tracks. I bet they've never done that with a more unstable jeepney, else they won't be bragging about their trainsurfing skills. Even inside the jeepney they'd be hanging for dear life!

I want to share with you what Ansel Adams though of black & white photography:

"Color photography usually takes advantage of the obvious. Black and white photography fares better, as its inherent abstraction takes the viewer out of the morass of manifest appearance and encourages inspection of the shapes, textures, and the qualities of light characteristic of the region."

Let me share with you a passage from Ansel Adam's biography which keeps me busy reading at night. I've a feeling you'll appreciate this as much as I do:

"I cannot command the creative impulse on demand. I never know in advance precisely what I will photograph. I go out into the world and hope I will come across something that imperatively interests me. I am addicted to the found object."

Know what, Noypetes, these cops you described so well are now mostly in partnership with MMDA's traffic enforcers. You'd see them working in tandem especially near the lunch and merienda hours ... hehehe.

The MMDA guy would be the one to flag down unwitting motorists, while the round belly'd cop remains seated behind the wheel of his stainless jeep, but with his ticket book menacingly displayed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that "Manila" song was composed by the Garcia brothers and sang by their band "Hot Dogs" way back in the 70's.

About the round belly'd cops sitting in their "katas ng kotong" stainless steel Malabon Jeeps(stainlees steel to withstand the rusting effects of seawater in Malabon and are favorites of seafood wholesalers to haul their merchandise to the wet matkets)these cops are normally picking their teeth after a free meal at the nearest karinderia or smoking cigarrettes taken from the street vendors in Avenida Rizal.

i would like to ask for your permission to use some of your images. i particularly enjoy your shots of the avenida/recto areas - the people, the street etc. i find them interesting and am doing some small paintings about street life in manila.

i was only able to check my emails this sunday after a long hiatus and read your note about that coffee tete-a-tete in the downtown area. my apologies too for a pretty late response. (i still feel a bit heady from a two-week long vacation down south.)

aie, it'd be nice to chitchat with you my dear sir and exchange neural contents over some cups of caffeine. i would look forward to that. ;-)

i saw that you placed that photo of a couple of men hanging on the edge of the jeepney. i find it quite funny that when i was in iloilo, i saw the exact same scene of men precariously clinging at a jeep. my cousin remarked "namumulaklak yung dyip".

Ola Senor! Ayan di na ako anonymous! I heed your advice to make an account lol. Yes, I was until 2001 in UST covering the events when Erap was ousted...I surely miss those days! I unfortunately didnt pursue photojourn but I am a hobbyist now in line with portrait and macro.

I got stories from these places too...Recto and Avenida...Aside from the embroidery and crosstitch shops to invitation printings and cellphone stalls....there's the underground diploma printing din lol.

During our investigative Journalism class, our Prof. (Joselito Zulueta) required us to take on subjects as this...the group which I was included on chose this nga, diploma printing sa Recto. It was easy to find one really, ask a person from the Crosstitch shop and he/she will point you where to go...

And why aren't they arrested? Same reasons why the vendors are still there. We interviewed a police official at the Manila City Hall, he's life story was actually portrayed by Rudy Fernandez sa pelikulang pinoy hehe....something like 'Sharp shooter,' I forgot his name. He showed us the stamps they confiscated from those people in Recto, kumbaga, galing din daw sa Universities yun...oh my!

wow thanks! seeing these pics make me remember the smell of smoke-belching jeepneys, i hated it then but i miss it now! also yung mga street food sa ilalim ng mga train stations.... and especially the busy surroundings. nothing like manila!

Life in Manila as observed by a former New Yorker who with a laptop and camera has reinvented himself as a storyteller. Winner of the PHILIPPINE BLOG AWARDS: Best Photo Blog in 2007 and three Best Single Post awards in 2008.